Monday Meeting on Pier Six Housing Plan

By on June 20, 2015 10:55 am in brooklyn bridge park, Development, Government, Real Estate

This coming Monday afternoon, June 22, starting at 3:00, there will be a public meeting concerning a proposed modification of the General Project Plan (“GPP”) for Brooklyn Bridge Park with respect to the amount and type of housing to be allowed at the entrance to Pier Six. The meeting will be at the offices of the Empire State Development Corporation (“ESDC”), 633 Third Avenue (between 40th and 41st streets), in the 37th floor conference room. At the meeting, representatives of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation will present the proposed changes to the GPP to the board of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation which, at the close of the meeting, will vote on whether to approve them. Before a vote is taken, members of the public will be allowed to speak, subject to a two minute limit per speaker. If the proposed modification is approved, it will go to a second meeting, on Thursday, June 25 at 9:30 a.m., for consideration by the ESDC board. The public will also be allowed to speak at that meeting. We’ll give more details if and when available.

If you want to attend Monday’s meeting, you must call (212) 803-3818 before noon on Monday to RSVP.

The Brooklyn Heights Association has this statement:

The change in the GPP is necessary before the BBPC can proceed with the construction of the 30- and 15-story Pier 6 buildings. The BHA continues to oppose any housing that is not necessary to support the Park. We will ask the BBPDC to pause before recommending the modification, in order to review – with the community – the commitments made in 2005, the financial needs of the Park and the changed economic and school crowding realities driven by the Park and the overwhelming level of surrounding development.

Save The View Now suggests that speakers strees the following:

1. Consistency of the proposed modification with the 2006 MGPP which established the parameters of BBP and the Urban Dev elopement Corporation Act (UDCA, aka ESDC) standards for Land Use Improvement and Civic Projects.

2. Significant environmental impacts from both proposed changes and changed circumstances since the 2006 FEIS that warrant preparing a SEIS. (impacts on school and transit capacity and anything else you can raise).

Share this Story:

, , , , ,

  • Andrew Porter

    Let’s return it to open water…

  • Jorale-man

    They certainly aren’t making the public input aspect of this easy, putting the meeting in the middle of a work day and up in Midtown Manhattan. Save the View now has the right talking points at any rate.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com ClaudeScales

    Let’s raise a cry: “Bring back breakbulk!”

    (Just kidding.)

  • Reggie

    Don’t take it back, Claude; it’s got everything. Good paying union jobs, graft, alliteration.

  • Willow Street Watch

    What did anyone think..they’re trying to make this an OPEN process?…
    No matter, everyone take personal/vacation day, half day, long lunch
    Hour, whatever and show en masse….because with these “types” numbers /volume and level of perceived anger is what matters. Trust me, I’ve been in this business a long time. A shock wave of angry Heights residents equals in their minds danger. But anger of reaction means little unless
    immediately after the meeting some genuine people convene a meeting and take really effective steps which put in place real penalties for an assault such as they are perpetrating. There HAVE to be penalties.

    Only then will you wip those arrogant condescending smrrks off the faces
    off BBP/developers/designers which they show up with at EVERY hearing

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com ClaudeScales

    Not to mention pilfering. Lots of pilfering.

  • mlcraryville

    There are two big, looming issues here:
    1. The total impact of these two bloated and out of scale buildings on the community and;
    2. The amount of revenue the Park Corporation needs to make the difference between the City’s share and its requirements for future park maintenance.
    These two points— impact and revenue — will require much more clarity and detail than the Park Corporation has so far shown itself willing to offer on this project or on Pierhouse, its other major money-generating project.
    Why the secrecy? Why the cover-up?

  • RJG

    All 108 pages of board materials for the June 22, 2015 meeting are available for the us to read at:

    http://www.esd.ny.gov/PublicMeetings_Notices/2015/06222015_BBPDC_BoardMaterials.pdf

  • RJG

    Nothing about this process is a secret.

  • Willow Street Watch

    Yes, its very important to arm ourselves with infor!nation so that we can mount the most fact supported, cogent presentations. But the key thing is that people have to put the historic community we are privileged to live in
    Before our personal momentary convenience and attend the meeting and be prepared to be fact based and logical in our literal presentation but convey the upset and anger many, many feel to the board on a real hu!an level.

  • stuart

    you all realize that the purpose of the meeting on Monday is just to check off a box. It will in no way influence the outcome of the project which is set. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.

  • mlcraryville

    I have received a note from an RJG saying that “it’s all there” in the 108 page report; nothing hidden, the note implies. So, I scanned the page after page of boiler plate and contractors’ requirements and flood notes and school summaries, parking, noise but, as usual, the important information about how much money the Corporation expects to realize from this mammoth project is absent. It’s an old trick, burying us in page after page of data that has nothing to do with the public’s vital interest in the money involved and hope we’ll be discouraged or drowned by the tidal wave of obfuscatory matter.

  • mlcraryville

    Check it out. There is not one word in all 108 pages about the money issue. Nada!

  • RJG

    Earlier this month, on June 11, Brooklyn Bridge Park published an updated financial model.

    Among the conclusions: “Revenues from Pier 6 development sites are essential to BBP’s financial solvency.”

    The complete presentation is available at:

    https://brooklynbridgepark.s3.amazonaws.com/p/2776/BBP%20Financial%20model%20for%20June%20BOD%20meeting%2006.11.15.pdf

  • Willow Street Watch

    How many of you showed up at the NYS Development meeting today at
    Third ave, and what does everybody think of what went on?

  • RJG

    Looking forward to viewing the webcast when it’s posted. Was not able to attend the meeting as I had family obligations that couldn’t be changed.
    Regardless of point of view, I’m glad people are getting involved.

  • JPG
  • RJG

    Thanks!

  • Willow Street Watch

    Well it was a wild and wooley scene nder a polite veneer at the NYDC gala for the establishment of the pier 6 buildings, one wag while the meetin was in progress texted the buildings should be rightly bamed the “De Blazzio”

    Numerous Heights activists and organizations testified against the bldns only one org that I saw testified in favor. I and others pointed to physical problems of the placement of the buildings and the total lack of trans- parency the BBP management operates in.

    Buy really this is all turning into well…a Heights Palisades Park!!!

    Hey, let’s get Cousin Brusie (in his leopard’s), Clay Cole, (John) Zacherly,
    Freddy Cannon back. Let’s get the Rosenthal’s to better run the place…
    We can have Chuck Barris, between hits for the CIA, to compose a new
    song. Let’s see “Last night I took a walk in the dark (literally and figura-tively) a swinging place named Re-gin-ia’s park…”

    Remember in the mid to late 60’s, the Crowds?!? The Traffic jams? What happened in the surrounding towns? Yipe! The cars parked on side streets even far from the park-the nighttime disruptions even like a mile and a half from the park? You don’t? You weren’t there? Oh yes you are..you’ve just been beamed back! Hold on to that roller coaster! The rides’ just starting!….

  • mlcraryville

    Thanks for the link to the slightly apocalyptic money projections. I have looked at them.
    BBPC claims that they have been “vetted publicly…” for years. But only a professional auditor, such as the Fed’s GSA, could really vet these claims and assumptions. So, the BBPC or better still an independent organization like the BHA should embark on seriously vetting all of the suppositions. At that point, the skeptics such as me, would take a breath and face the money music. Or not.

  • RJG

    I don’t know of any reason why we should dismiss the professional work of Marks Paneth LLP, the park’s auditor, or the AICPA peer review process that covers Marks Paneth LLP.

    Marks Paneth is…

    • The 35th largest accounting firm in the nation

    • The 9th largest accounting firm in the Mid-Atlantic region

    • One of the top three forensic accounting providers serving the New York legal community(1)
    _________________
    (1) New York Law Journal Reader Ranking Survey

    Source: http://www.markspaneth.com/our-firm-life

  • mlcraryville

    Doesn’t t the fact that Marks Paneth LLP is working for BBPC raise just the littlest concern about their findings?. Isn’t it possible that their findings might not be totally objective? Isn’t it possible that the outcomes were foreordained by the very people who were writing their checks? It has happened before. That’s why an objective review is absolutely necessary.

  • Willow Street Watch

    I and a friend tried to open media site to find a error code. Any ideas why this is?

    Its interesting, during the meeting members of the BBP Corp. approach-
    and whispered into the ears of two committee members(!) And passed notes to three committee members(!!) This while the meeting was in progress!!!…one organization representative abuptly stood up and point-
    edly appeared to ask why it was that several NYDC board members were also board members of either the BBP or allied organizations; she asked how the board members could be voting on this measure under such a conflict! The chairman of the board said indeed he had recused himself, but the remaining board members were in no way willing to address this very serious matter.

    One speaker, likened the BBP’s operation to a classic secret society;
    “Its like trying to find out details of the federal reserve’s gold swap program or like trying to find out what the bilderbergers have decided in one of their meetings. The BBC are like Lucis trust members when you ask them something”… “They’re on a mission and they won’t tell you anything” he said.

  • brooklynheightsguy

    Exactly. Remember when Arthur Andersen was the auditing firm for Enron. Nothing bad happened there.

  • Reggie

    Ah, yes, the ‘It’s happened before so it will probably happen here argument.’

  • mlcraryville

    A little sunshine on BBPC’s proposal and assumptions is a wonderful sanitizer. Let the sun shine in

  • guest

    Oh please. Do you really think that noone knows that Willow Street Watch = Jeff Smith? Please don’t quote yourself and pretend it’s someone else. Claude Please block this racist.

  • guest

    Yes – the only two examples in the world of a company paying it’s independent auditors are BBP and Enron. That’s it. never mind the fact that every company that gets audited pays it’s auditors. Never mind the many public presentations that BBP has made about it’s financials. Never mind the annual budgets that get released publicly every year. Please stop pretending that there’s anything BBP could that would satisfy you. You don’t believe what the BBP is saying because you don’t want to believe, and nothing they can do will convince you otherwise. And that’s fine, but don’t keep on promoting this fiction that “if only they did this one thing I’d totally believe them..”